Tuesday, May 24, 2011

New Book: "On What Matters" by Derek Parfit

On What Matters is a major work in moral philosophy. It is the long-awaited follow-up to Derek Parfit's 1984 book Reasons and Persons, one of the landmarks of twentieth-century philosophy. Parfit now presents a powerful new treatment of reasons, rationality, and normativity, and a critical examination of three systematic moral theories - Kant's ethics, contractualism, and consequentialism - leading to his own ground-breaking synthetic conclusion. Along the way he discusses a wide range of moral issues, such as the significance of consent, treating people as a means rather than an end, and free will and responsibility. Parfit's book is dedicated to Thomas Nagel and T. M. Scanlon.

Contents

VOLUME ONE

Introduction, Samuel Scheffler

PrefaceSummary

Part I: Reasons

- Normative Concepts

- Objective Theories

- Subjective Theories

- Further Arguments

- Rationality

- Morality

- Moral ConceptsPart II: Principles

- Possible Consent

- Merely As A Means

- Respect And Value

- Free Will And Desert

Part III: Theories

- Universal Laws

- What If Everyone Did That?

- Impartiality

- Contractualism

- Consequentialism

- Conclusions

Appendices A-C

VOLUME TWO

Summary

Part IV: Commentaries- Hiking The Range, Susan Wolf- Humanity As An End In Itself, Allen Wood- A Mismatch of Methods, Barbara Herman- How I Am Not A Kantian, T. M. ScanlonPart V: ResponsesPart VI: Normativity

- Analytical Naturalism And Subjectivism

- Non-Analytical Naturalism

- The Triviality Objection

- Naturalism And Nihilism

- Non-Cognitivism And Quasi-Realism

- Normativity And Truth

- Normative Truths

- Metaphysics

- Epistemology

- Rationalism

- Agreement

- Nietzsche

- What Matters Most

Appendices D-J

Various draft manuscripts of the book have been available online. See an early draft, entitled "Climbing the Mountain", here (pdf, 310 pages), and a draft from December 2008 here (pdf, 750 pages). Five chapters in Part II and Part III are adapted from Parfit's Tanner Lectures in 2002: "What We Could Rationally Will" (pdf).